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Wulfrik the Wanderer
Wulfrik the Wanderer, known also as the Eternal Challenger, the''' Inescapable One''' and the''' World Walker', is the ultimate sea-faring warrior. A mighty giant of a man, clad in hulking plate and bedecked in the trophies of his many kills. Wulfrik travels the four corners of the world, seeking the greatest and most deadly warriors and beasts to bring them to battle and slaughter them as demanded by the Gods. One of the most devoted followers of Chaos to walk the earth, Wulfrik has made offerings of lords, kings, sea-serpents and dragons to his masters. To Khorne he offers up their skulls, to Nurgle the contents of their slit bellies, to Slaanesh their still-beating hearts, and to Tzeentch their dying breath. History Champion of Chaos In his former life, Wulfrik was a Chaos Champion of the Sarl tribe of southern Norsca. A warrior-born who bore the Mark of the gods on his flesh, he was ever renowned throughout the holdings of his tribe and beyond as a superlative warrior, feared for his prodigious strength and unmatched skill at arms. Wulfrik forged his infamy by taking the heads of every rival Chaos Champion who crossed his path, proudly displaying them for all to see as a declaration of his power and the folly of challenging him. In the violent societies of Norsca, Wulfrik was famed, and many sagas were sung to his glory by the skald-chanters of the Sarls. Pride proved the Chosen's downfall, however. It was 2519 IC that a massive bout of tribal conflict had erupted between the Sarls and their traditional rivals, the Aeslings of the north. The Aesling army was led by their king, a terrible Chaos Lord known as Torgald. Outnumbered and outmatched, it seemed as if doom had come for the men of the Sarls, with only bloody death awaiting them at the hands of their merciless cousins. But the Sarl king, a Chosen of Tzeentch known as Viglundr, was a cunning man with great influence, he brought forth mercenaries from all over Norsca and even from the Kurgan realms to fight under his banner, and even gained the services of the Ogre tribes who dwelled in the north, but he paid the most to gain the greatest asset. Recognizing Wulfrik's skill at arms, he offered the champion untold wealth and the hand of his daughter, and thus, the station of king by inheritence if he would gain victory for the tribe. Wulfrik, though looking down upon Viglundr as a pathetic shadow of his predecessors, nontheless grasped at the chance for power and led the hosts of the Sarls to war. Unbeknownst to Wulfrik, or any other Sarl at the time, the entire war was nothing more than a highly complex, Machiavellian scheme enacted by Viglundr to eliminate Torgald, thus allowing his more pliable son, Sveinbjorn, to take the throne of the Aeslings. This would have then engendered an alliance with the northern tribe that would see Viglundr's power, and that of the Sarls, increased by the aid of the bloodthirsty Khornate Aeslings. Indeed, the Raven God had marked the Sarl King well. At the now legendary Battle of Thousand Skulls, the Sarls and Aeslings clashed. Amidst the carnage, Wulfrik fought the mighty Chaos Lord Torgald. Wulfrik slew Torgald, cutting off his head and holding it high for the Aeslings to see. With the death of their king, they quit the field and victory was in the hands of the Sarls. That night, as was the custom of the Northern tribes, a great feast was held in Wulfrik's honour. No man or beast, Wulfrik proclaimed, had fought more fiercely in that battle, and none, he swore, would outdrink him in victory. Using the skull of King Torgald as his drinking vessel, Wulfrik had matched words with deeds. It had taken 8 entire barrels of mead to put him under the table, a feat that had impressed even the Ogres who fought alongside him. Before the mead completely overwhelmed him however, the drunken Wulfrik began to boast of his exploits. Before he was done, he had slain every beast of the Chaos Wastes twice and personally boxed the ears of the Emperors of the Empire, Nippon and Cathay. However, it was the champion's final boast that brought the doom upon his head. He claimed he was the equal of any warrior of the realms of the mortal world or in the realms beyond flesh. The World-Walker That night, Wulfrik was visited by a strange emissary of the Dark Gods. In his dreams he journeyed to paradises, necroplises and fantastic netherworlds. He saw the gleaming towers of the Elf-folk, the gilded halls of Dwarf Lords and the ramshackle fortresses of Orcish kings. And everywhere he passed was drowned in great tides of blood. When Wulfrik awoke, he found himself speaking in a thousand languages and his tongue had been twisted in a sharp, fluted shape like that of a bird's. A shaman of the Kurgan tribes recognized this as the Gift of Tongues and enthusiastically pronounced Wulfrik as blessed. Wulfrik, a short-tempered man by any standard, with little patience for others, made certain the Kurgan died slowly. But that was not the end of it, Wulfrik had been given the Gift so that he could challenge the mightiest warriors of the world to battle, the gods had seen fit to make Wulfrik prove his proud boast and had now cursed him to an eternity of battle. In order to accomplish his charge, Wulfrik required transport, for the offerings he was tasked to find dwelled in the farthest hinterlands of the world. Aided by his warband, including his comrade, a grizzled Marauder known as Sigvatr, Wulfrik learned of daemon-blessed longship in the possession of a Chaos Sorceress, the Skaeling witch Baga Yar. It took all the treasure Wulfrik had won from the killing of Torgald and all the silver Viglundr had paid him to hire enough warriors to assault the daemonic fortress of the Skaeling, as well as to fight through her army of daemons. In the end, the battle was won when Wulfrik hacked off the Chaos Sorceress's limbs and boiled her to death in her own cauldron. Two hundred men had died fighting the crone and her daemons, but the victory was his, as was the daemon-ship. Wulfrik let his men keep whatever treasures and artefacts they could find within the witch's fortress; he had come only for the longship, which he named the ''Seafang. The Seafang is no ordinary ship, the daemons bound in its creation allows it to sail not on water, but upon the Winds of Magic in the Realm of Chaos and appears again into the mortal world where Wulfrik wills. With such power at his command, it is said that no enemy can escape the Worldwalker in his quest to prove himself the mightiest warrior in all the world. The first test was to hunt down the Tomb Lord Khareops and offer up its shrivelled entrails to Nurgle, the Crow God. With the Seafang, Wulfrik travelled to far-off Khemri and slew the Tomb Lord. Then other tests came, such as the slaying of giants, the scalp of one of which Wulfrik fashioned his cloak from, and the killing of Brettonian Earls and Orc Warbosses. In time, Wulfrik's victories could not easily be counted, and his fame had spread throughout the North and tales of his feats were spoken in awed whispers evem by the Kurgan tribes of the east. Wulfrik's name now thrived in the sagas of the Norse, and thousands of hardened warriors across the northlands all killed for the chance to follow him and share in his glory. Executioner of the Gods Wulfrik, cursed to an eternity of unending battle, hunted down and slew the offerngs demanded of him by the Gods. He journeyed to the holds of the Dwarfen Lords and took from them both life and gold, slew mighty dragons and even slew the unworthy champions of the gods from among the tribes of Kurgan and Hung, and even daemons themselves fell to their knees and begged his mercy. All men of the northlands honoured his name and envied the favour the gods had shown him, but deep in his heart Wulfrik despised his curse, and despised even more those who thought it a blessing. His wish, for a time at least, was to break it and return to his own quest for power and glory. Upon returning from one of his hunts to the Sarl city of Ormskaro, Wulfrik was approached by yet another Kurgan shaman: Zarnath of the Tokmars. The sorcerer told Wulfrik of how he could lift the Curse of the gods from him, given an ancient artefact of Chaos. In return, he asked for the Seafang. Wulfrik, despite the protests of his comrades not to trifle with the gods, agreed, seeking to once again pursue his ambitions for lordship of the Sarls. Wulfrik had also still desired the hand of Viglundr's daughter, Hjordis, that he was promised as payment for the killing of Torgald. However the cunning king had now offered her hand to an Aesling prince in order to secure an alliance with the northerners. This course of action did not sit well with the barbarian. Zarnath explained that in order to enact the ritual to free Wulfrik, he would require an ancient artefact of the Hung Sorcerer-Kings, the Smile of Sardiss. The artefact, he said lay in one of the enclaves of the Chaos Dwarf of the Dark Lands, who sometimes had dealings with the Norsemen. With the Seafang's transportation, Wulfrik and his warriors journeyed to the foul lands of the Fire Dwarfs. There, they set out to the great fortress of Dronangkul, or 'Fortress of Iron' in the debased Khazalid of the Fire Dwarfs, where the Kurgan claimed the Dwarfen Lord: Khorakk, and the Smile of Sardiss could be found. As was their way, the Norscans slaughtered their way through the defences of the Fire Dwarfs; the blessings of Hashut proving no match for the unending fury of the Dark Gods. By any standards, the Norsemen utterly annihilated the Dwarf Hold, an impressive feat, given their relatively small numbers. Wulfrik himself had slain a Bull Centaur Lord, as well Khorakk himself in that raid; overpowering the former in a contest of strength and burning the latter alive in one of his own contraptions before claiming the Smile of Sardiss from him. However, some of the Norscans fell in the battle, including Wulfrik's old friend Sigvatr. Wulfrik knelt beside his comrade to hear his final words and afford him the honour he was due as a great warrior, such was the respect and comeraderie between the two. However, no man amongst Wulfrik's band could guess how foul the circumstances were that led to the great warrior's death, nor of the great consequences it would herald. With that, the Norsemen returned home to Ormskaro to rest and replenish their ranks. In his lengthy absence, the Sarls, as well as their king, believed that the Kurgan had led Wulfrik the Wanderer to his end and had continued on his plan to forge his new alliance with the Aeslings. The arrival of Wulfrik, alive afterall, notably put a dent in this plan. For as the slayer of their king, the Aeslings both despised as well as admired the Inescapable One. But Sveinbjorn, a mere mortal man, could not hope to match a warrior blessed with the Mark of the Norscan gods, and so refrained from challenging Wulfrik to battle, even with all his Hersirs backing him. Realizing that he could not overcome Wulfrik in an honest contest of arms, he instead resolved to find someone else who could. The next day, Sveinbjorn challenged Wulfrik to Personal Combat within the Wolf Forest, a great arena the Sarls had built in his honour, and where he screened potential recruits for his warband in lethal combat. However, when Wulfrik arrived, he found that he was not to do battle with Sveinbjorn himself, but a fellow champion of Chaos. A warrior who towered over even Wulfrik, Troll-like in stature, clad in blackened steel and bearing a massive daemon-axe encrusted with hissing runes of the Dark Tongue, the language of daemons and sorcerers. Yet despite the apparent favour of the gods, the warrior was more akin to a maddened hound than a man, and Wulfrik was appalled to learn that this creature was once Fraener, a mighty Champion of the gods and war-chief of the Aeslings, who, as was the custom of the Aeslings, led his fellow tribesmen to slaughter the Kurgan tribes of the east, and even pillaged and plundered the dolmens of the Beastkin. A hero throughout all of Norsca, Wulfrik could not believe that the animal before him was the same man when he roared the name in a bestial battlecry. The Forsaken Chaos champion was a daunting foe, but Wulfrik had slain giants and daemons like cattle, and no man set against him could ever be his equal in battle. Wulfrik hacked off one of Fraener's arms, but from the bloody stump a great spike of bone and meat erupted, when he struck him again, tentacles slithered out rather than blood. The hero's sword clashed with the mutant's great claws, locked in a terrible battle until Wulfrik drove the Forsaken off the platform of the Wolf Forest down upon the spikes below and then clove through his black warhelm and split his skull in two. No man amongst Sveinbjorn's hersirs troubled Wulfrik after that, not a one of them had not borne witness to Fraener's monstrous ability in battle many times before, and the prospect of facing a man powerful enough to defeat the fallen Champion was nothing short of suicide. Their newest plan to slay the Champion failed, Viglundr and Sveinbjorn conspired to instead kill Wulfrik with craft and cunning. Viglundr had manipulated Wulfrik into killing Torgald to pave the way for this new alliance, but the warrior persisted as a thorn in his side. To accomplish this, Viglundr enticed one of Wulfrik's warriors, a Marauder known as Broendulf, to slay the Champion. Meanwhile, Wulfrik and the rest of his followers readied themselves to journey to the far-off land of the High Elves, known as Ulthuan in the lands of civilized men, but as Alfheim in the tongue of Norsca. A voyage only attempted by the boldest Northmen, such as Erik Redaxe or Magnus the Mad, and always ending in ruin for all of them. Still, the Worldwalker would not be denied, and led his Chaos Warriors to the shores of that enchanted place. Only there, Zarnath claimed, could he summon the magical powers necessary to free Wulfrik from his curse. However, the Kurgan's true nature would be revealed in that place. When they made landfall on the shores of Cothique, Wulfrik and his followers happened upon a group of Elf maidens praying at a monolith. Zarnath warned the Norsemen that the maids were actually witches, and were calling upon strange, arcane forces to smite the invaders and convinced them to kill them. With the dark abandon of their race, the Norscans fell upon the defenseless Elves and slaughtered them gleefully. As the carnage abated, Zarnath mocked the barbarians for their bloodthirsty ways, revealing that the Elf women were not mages, but merely wives who had come to pray to Isha for fertility, and gloated of the horrible vengeance the menfolk of Ulthuan would visit upon them for this act. Zarnath had never intended to free Wulfrik of his curse, only to see him dead in the either the lands of the Chaos Dwarfs, or the High Elves. The deceitful sorcerer disappeared from the scene before the Wanderer could make him suffer for his betrayal. The Norscans were then set upon by the Silver Helms and Elven bowmen. But they stood their ground and drove the Elves back, denying them vengeance for a time. The elves had thought that Wulfrik and his warriors would be as easily vanquished as the horde of Erik Redaxe; but the Worldwalker was made of sterner stuff than the vanquished king. Wulfrik even defeated one of the great pale Merwyrms of Ulthuan, bloodying it and causing it retreat back into the deeps. However, the Seafang was smashed to kindling. But the true power of the ship was never in its oars or hull, but it was in the figurehead that the daemon-magic bound to it was kept. Using the power of figure-head, Wulfrik and the only survivor of his band, Broendulf, managed to escape Ulthuan. While travelling the Border-Realm, Broendulf revealed to Wulfrik the scale of Viglundr's treachery and confessed his part in his plans. Incensed, the Champion nontheless offered a truce with Broendulf until their mutual enemies, Zarnath chief among them, were slain. When the mists parted, the Northmen found themselves in the Empire, for here is where Zarnath had fled to. He was no tribesman of the East, but rather a mage of one of the Colleges of Magic. With the true nature of his enemy revealed to him, Wulfrik traveled back to Ormskaro, to muster such a fleet that would destroy the city Zarnath had fled to. When he returned to the great tower of Ormfell, he found Sveinbjorn forcing himself on Hjordis. The Champion crippled the Aesling prince, and brushed aside the princess of the Sarls, despite her pleading that her father had forced her into it, even displaying the marks of a whip upon her back. Wulfrik had no sympathy for it - he had fought long to break this curse, only to find the woman he had done it for did not even possess a fraction of the same iron. Viglundr then came into the scene and begged Wulfrik to spare Sveinbjorn's life, fearing the retribution of the Aeslings should one of their chieftains die. Wulfrik, now having leverage over the man, told the Sarl King of his plan to plunder far into the Empire, using the Seafang's power to spirit the Northmen beyond the defenses of Marienburg and Nordland. Intrigued by the proposal, Viglundr agreed, and the Norsemen set about rebuilding the Seafang using the wood of the ancient Trolltree, a horrific remnant of the age from before Norsca's settling by the Norsii in ancient times. With the Seafang now rebuilt into perhaps one of the mightiest vessals of Chaos, Norsemen mustered from every tribe to join in this great raid. The Norsemen soon arrived in Reikland, at the city of Wisborg where Zarnath, known actually as Ludwig Stossel of the Azure Order, who foresaw his death at Wulfrik's hand, had fled to. Howling the name of Khorne, the Norscan God of Battles, the Norse warriors butchered their way through the meagre defenses of the southling city in berserk rage. Wulfrik did battle with and defeated a powerful Warrior-Priest of Sigmar in the siege, thus proving the supremacy of the dark gods of the north over the gods of the south. The baron of Wisborg was also slain, as was his wife, and the entire city was put to the torch and plundered of riches. Wulfrik cornered Stossel in his tower, recognizing the azure glow of his eyes, and fought through all his constructs. The Norseman then subjected Stossel to the torturous death of the Blood Raven, in retribution for the scale of his deceit. His vengeance reaped, Wulfrik still had other debts to pay. Wulfrik saw to Prince Sveinbjorn second. The Aesling had attempted to bribe Wulfrik's men into betraying him, promising them a portion of the captured treasure. Wulfrik, having no need for gold, promised his men everything in the Seafang's hold to help him in his own deceit. Wulfrik explained to the trembling prince how he would cut off the chain links connecting most of the other longships to the Seafang, abandoning them there while the Seafang took to the Realm of Chaos. Flying Sveinbjorn's banner on the ship, the tribes would blame Sveinbjorn, not Wulfrik for the betrayal, thus damning the prince's name for all eternity. Sveinbjorn begged Wulfrik to leave him his honour, accepting whatever tortures Wulfrik sought to inflict on him, but the champion was not receptive. To cap off the revenge, Wulfrik utilized another torture to kill the prince, putting a snake down his throat while he screamed for mercy. When Wulfrik returned to Ormskaro, he threw Sveinbjorn's severed head at Viglundr's feet, his features swollen by the venom of the snake and spoke of how he had left the warriors in the lands of the Empire. Viglundr was shocked, the tribes would now surely descend upon him demanding vengeance for the death and betrayal of their kinsmen. The king pleaded to Wulfrik to aid him again, begging forgiveness for trying to cheat him. Wulfrik laughed at the king's pathetic mewling and strode from the hall, his imagination swimming with the sight of Ormskaro burning and Viglundr dying a terrible death at the hands of the chieftains of the other clans. Viglundr desperately reminded him of Hjordis, but to no avail. He could not have fathomed that Wulfrik had already butchered her before speaking to him. Thus did Ormskaro, legendary seat of the Sarl tribes, fall into ruin and destruction. Ironically by the hand of the man the Sarls had reckoned as one of their greatest heroes. This entire adventure had also served to reveal to Wulfrik the truth of his fate: that his curse was in fact a blessing. Without the power of the Seafang, he could not have entrapped schemers such as Viglundr and Sveinbjorn. Without his fame as the Worldwalker, he could not have gained the loyalty of men. Without the lies of Zarnath, the pieces would not have come together. The gods had helped him exact vengeance, and with his faith restored, he would serve them for all eternity as their hunter, their executioner. There were no more attempts to escape his doom as Wulfrik traveled the world, laying low the offerings demanded of him once more. Now truly he became the Chaos Gods' most devout servant, and felt their power coursing through him. Present Day Since then, Wulfrik has embraced his exile, accepting the honourable charge the Norscan gods have given him. He now ranges throughout the world as their will directs him, and continues to challenge the mightiest beings of the Old World to battle. Throughout his unending hunt, Wulfrik has never been bested in battle, and many are the men of Norsca and Kurgan who eagerly come to his banner, eager to fight alongside him to catch a measure of his glory. He has fought many times in the Armies of Chaos, also, for at times the offering he is commanded to strike down may be found amidst the ranks of the hosts of the faithless South. Lords and paupers alike cannot escape the World-Walker, for he is merciless, killing without compunction, and taking pride in all his killings. As the gods have decreed, thus it shall ever be. Personality At first, when he first received the Gift of Tongues, Wulfrik was a jaded, blasphemous warrior. Resenting the gods he had once honoured for tearing him away from the pleasures of the world of men. After the slaying of his enemies however, Wulfrik came to better understand the gods' will and realized, as all other men of Norsca had said, that the favour they had bestowed upon him was for his betterment. Realizing at last that the gods had only aided him throughout his life, Wulfrik dedicated himself solely to them, fully embracing his role as the Inescapable One. Wulfrik, as befits a Chaos Champion, is a bloodthirsty savage, who delights in suffering and destruction and is infuriated by the weakness and cowardice of lesser men. Barbarous, war-like, and devoted to Chaos in all its forms, Wulfrik holds those who do not bend knee to the Northern Gods in contempt and enjoys annihilating them and obliterating all they hold dear. He is cruel and does not forget slights against his honour, but is possessed of a savage code of conduct and forms a rough sort of brotherhood with those he finds worthy. To those who earn such brotherhood, Wulfrik is a heroic and inspirational leader, and none can deny his keen tactical sense, nor the fire of leadership that burns in his hooded eyes. Wulfrik possesses a caustic wit, and a gift for wordplay. He is an unforgivable boaster, but to his credit, the majority of his boasts are mostly the unvarnished truth. Abilities Wulfrik is perhaps one of the mightiest warriors in all the Old World, with unsurpassed strength and incredible swordplay, as his many displayed trophies no doubt indicate. His skills such that he can match almost any warrior in the world in a contest of arms. His agility and dexterity are also comparable to his raw physical power, and he is able to move and strike and lightning speeds. A highly experienced combatant, his instincts and tactical mastery have been forged in the crucible of a thousand battles. He has overcome countless monstrosities in contests of brute strength, such as a Bull Centaur Lord, a Yhetee chieftain, countless rival Chaos Champions, a debased Forsaken, Giants and a Merwyrm. Wulfrik possess the Gift of Tongues, which allows him to issue an irrefusable challenge to any creature in their own language. The gift does not merely allow Wulfrik to speak any language, but allows his words to strike into a creature's very being and compel them to fight him. Combined with the well-known Norscan aptitude for biting, albeit unsubtle, insults, Wulfrik is able to goad his enemies into a reckless fury where they are more likely to make fatal mistakes for him exploit, thus ensuring his victory in battle all the more. Like many Chaos champions, Wulfrik is clad in an unholy and near unimpenetrable suit of Chaos Armour. Sources *''Armybook: Warriors of Chaos (7th Edition), pg. 74 *''Armybook: Warriors of Chaos ''(8th Edition), pg. 49 *''Wulfrik ''(Novel) ''by C.L. Werner Category:Chaos Category:Northmen Category:Warhammer World Category:Heroes